And, just to show the BS is not confined to just sports:

One more for you, from the world of game shows:



OK. Let's get it out there right now.

Anyone who's followed game shows for the last 50 years knows that there is black-letter Federal Law against the rigging of anything on a game show. It's called "Prohibited Practices in Contests of Skill and Chance".

I've spent about six years trying to help people get American Idol and Survivor and all this rigged reality shit off the air, and have basically found that the FCC, in it's infinite (*cough*pro-corporate*cough*) wisdom, has declared them "entertainment" and won't touch them.

As a result, we get AT&T ensuring Adam Lambert doesn't win American Idol and Richard Hatch not disqualified from Survivor for apparent sexual assault and all sorts of scripted mayhem which has now put everything competitive on television in question.

So I look at this incident. First off, it's probably the first someone who does not watch the show has heard of Wheel of Fortune since their first (and, to date, only) million-dollar winner a couple of months after they started the million-dollar format.

(And even that one was more than a bit questionable. The first time someone gets to spin for the million, and they hit the 1-in-24 and solve? As the old song went: "Things that make you go hmmmmmmm...)

Now, understand, as a kid, I had my occasional situation where I could go off and solve a blank puzzle. Here, I'll even give you that puzzle and you tell me if you can solve it blank:

_ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

You are looking for a LANDMARK. (It was actually two lines of two words each in the original, but Blogger won't let me quite get that right, so you get this format.)

OK, I'll let that one be an exercise to the reader, but compare the complexity (and the realistic number of options) of that puzzle to this one, and tell me, legitimately, that something funny wasn't going on here.

Then add this to the equation: If this wasn't a rig job to get the show some "buzz", that is HORRIFIC strategy on the part of the contestant (as friends of mine who were game-show fans have said to me for several days now). Unless you are very fearful that the next spin is going to a turn-loser, you don't solve it like that. You rack up a little spending cash for that trip you just were going to win.

So this DOES NOT pass the Smell Test, and, hence, wins Rig Job of the Day.